A few days ago, she returned from a business trip bearing a sealed shipping envelope. “This is for you,” Lois said, quickly averting her eyes. She left the room in a hurry, slamming the door shut behind her. The package throbbed in my hands. What the hell could this be?

As I opened the envelope, a sickly green light emanated from within, filling the room with its nauseous tint. For a brief moment, the thought crossed my mind that Lois was trying to kill me, that she had somehow got her hands on a small particle of discarded radioactive waste, that I was now going to die a horrible death from being exposed to it. Then I saw the tentacles and the Santa hat.

Gingerly, I removed the idol from its faux wool bedding. Astonishment and horror filled me, yet also wonder and a strange sense of liberation. Humanity’s struggle is over, I thought. The Old Ones have arrived to hurl death and destruction on mankind. I ran out of the room. Upstairs, in the living room, Lois stood by the Christmas tree. I proclaimed jubilantly, “We must situate the idol in a place of prominance on the coniferous throne of pagan worship!” Odd, that didn’t sound like something I’d say. “Yes,” Lois said, her voice dull and mechanical. “We must place the idol on the Christmas tree.”

All through the night, the tree vibrates at a low frequency, an unhealthy glow radiating from its center. In a highly improbable turn of events, our children are begging us to cancel Christmas, anything to get rid of that corrupted tree, that horrid ornament. Even worse, our cat has gone missing. We last saw him writhing beneath the tree, scratching at the branches, yowling in unearthly fright. Late at night, I still hear his uncanny howling, faint and far away, sounding as if it originates from deep within the heart of the tree’s trunk. I now suspect our Christmas tree houses a portal opening onto R’yleh.

Ever since Lois gave me the “ornament,” its dead black eyes seem to be trying to communicate with me. My mind is not right. I’ve been having bizarre dreams of a jagged island looming in the midst of storm-tossed seas. Exploring its circumference, I come upon a doorway leading into a gargantuan building, conceived and constructed from alien geometries. As the doorway opens, tentacles wreathed in tinsel slither forth. My mind hovers on the verge of collapse as an immense voice, deep and gutteral, reverberates within my cranium.

MWRAWLKABRAHA BAKAXIKHEKH ZEPRAKLAXOSZOSO

“What’s that, Mr. Cthulhu? You want me to compose a Christmas carol in your honor?”

IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!

“But what of my immortal soul? Won’t I be damned to hell for such blasphemy?”

ANTAKLOS MRADUK FHORN’N TEKALILI

“Oh, you’ve already eaten my soul?”

IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!

“In that case…”

(sung to the tune of O Come All Ye Faithful)

O come all ye Old Ones Loathesome and repugnant O come ye, O come ye to reign and destroy.

Tremble and fear him from outer dimensions O come let us abhor him O come let us abhor him O come let us abhor him Cthulhu fhtagn!

I’m straining with every ounce of my being to stop myself from typing this next bit, but Cthulhuclaus compels me to tell you that you can purchase your own Christmas idol, I mean ornament, at the Etsy shop.

What doom have I wrought upon mankind?